1968 Topps Johnny Bench Rookie, variation or printing flaw error?

[Cliff Bowman]

I noticed someone on eBay put up a 1968 Topps Johnny Bench rookie card (not my card or my auction) describing it as a variation/error, so I looked at the backs of other 1968 Bench cards and saw plenty of both versions. I had never heard of this discrepancy before. I can't tell if it was mistakenly typed as an "n" originally or if it was just the top part of the "h" was obstructed in the printing process.

[almostdone]

Excuse my ignorance but in which word does the "h" appear?
Drew

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by almostdone

Excuse my ignorance but in which word does the "h" appear?
Drew

On the second card, the first line of the bio of Bench says, "Johnny impressed tne..."

[Jason94Cobra]

Great, now I am going to have to pull my rookies out to look at them... lol

[savedfrommyspokes]

Cliff, looks like Dean is all over this variation:

http://www.deanscards.com/search?s=1968+topps+247


Based on a small sample size, an approximate ratio appears to be for every two cards with "the", there is one copy with "tne". Not super rare, but very interesting.

[ALR-bishop]

This card is a great example of why it is so hard to define a variation versus a recurring print defect. Was this a printing error that was discovered and intentionally corrected, or was it just a recurring print defect that went unnoticed for a period of time during print runs, like the 58 Herrer or 57 Bakep. Or does it even matter ? If it does not matter then is any recurring print defect a variation ?